Libby was just starting across the rockslide below him, down near the shore of the little lake. She was riding the big buckskin that had belonged to Jack. For a girl who'd claimed to have died in the saddle yesterday, she looked very good on it, erect and confident. She'd left her raincoat somewhere, and she was carrying one of the lever-action guns in her hand.
She had to check the buckskin and let it pick its own way across the rocks. I saw her glance back occasionally, apparently hearing Davis hammering down the trail behind her. There was no sign of Holz. I didn't know what he had in mind and I didn't let myself speculate on it. I'd done enough telepathy for one day. I just waited. Libby had made it across the rocks and was starting into the trees on the far side of the slide when Holz's rifle fired and the buckskin went down.
I was aware of Libby throwing herself clear and rolling aside, still clinging to the carbine, but now I was concentrating on the telescopic sight four inches in front of my eye. Suddenly my target appeared, clear and sharp in the field of the glass. Holz was leaning over and around the rock on which I'd been focusing, aiming at something off to the right that he'd apparently not been able to cover from his safe hiding place. I realized that he'd waited until the last possible moment to take Libby, hoping that Davis would come into his view, too. Now he was reaching far around for the second target..
I drew a long breath, let it out halfway, and held it. I put the cross hairs in the right place and added trigger pressure very gently, letting the piece fire itself when it was ready. There was a lot of noise and commotion. None of those Magnums, pistols or rifles, are gentle guns. Two hundred and fifty yards away, Holz lay for a moment quite still. Then, too soon for me to fire again, he slid limply off the rock out of sight. His weapon remained behind, neatly balanced on the ledge he'd been using as a rest.
I was up and running, watching the shadowed hole into which he'd disappeared. I swung high up the slope, trying to find an angle from which I could see the bottom of the crevice. Finally I found it and saw him lying there in the shadow, apparently dead. At a hundred yards I stopped and went to one knee. The sitting position is steadier and the prone steadier still; but I couldn't get down any lower and still see my mark. Kneeling, I took careful aim and fired my last cartridge.
The limp figure in the shadows moved abruptly. It rose, swaying, and emptied the pistol in its hand blindly in my direction. Flat on the ground, now, I heard a couple of bullets strike off to the left. One whined directly over me. Then Holz's gun was empty. He slumped back out of sight. I drew my own revolver and spent a full fifteen minutes making the final approach. I could have saved myself the trouble.
When I got there, he was quite dead, with his empty automatic in his hand. A guy named Kingston was avenged, if it mattered, and a more important gent, exact identity not yet determined, wouldn't be shot this fall, at least not by Hans Holz. I suppose you could call it a victory. I took the little envelope from his shirt, a box of cartridges from his jacket, and a set of car keys from his pants. I picked up his rifle and went off, leaving him there.
34
THE COOK TENT LOOKED AS IF IT had been subjected to machine-gun fire. I glanced at Davis and he nodded bleakly. He pulled the flap aside to let me go in. A familiar-looking trenchcoat had been tossed on the table. There was something under the blankets near the stove.
I shrugged off the two rifles I carried-I didn't need both of them, but you don't leave good guns lying around outdoors-and went over and drew back the blankets gently to look at Pat Bellman. She was quite dead, of course. I still didn't know everything about the woman who'd called herself Libby Meredith, but I'd learned enough to know she wouldn't miss.
I said softly, without looking at Davis, "That's damn good shooting for a lady tied hand and foot… how did she talk you into turning her loose?" Davis looked miserably at the ground and didn't speak. I said, "Never mind. Don't tell me. Let me guess. She blackmailed you. She convinced you that if you didn't untie her she was going to starve to death painfully, or wet her pants humiliatingly, right before your eyes…"
Some muscles in his face twitched, telling me I'd guessed right on the second try. I started to say something sarcastic and bitter to the effect that sacrificing one girl's life to save another's kidneys wasn't really a very good bargain, and that in any case people had been known to go to the bathroom with their hands tied, but I kept it back.
So they'd turned Libby loose, all the way loose, and Pat Bellman had escorted her out behind the bushes and, of course, looked discreetly away at the critical moment, because even if you're a woman you don't stare rudely at another woman answering the call of nature. That moment of inattention had been all Libby had needed to grab Pat's.30-30 carbine, shoot once, and then spray the tent with rifle bullets to keep Davis from interfering as she ran for the horses.
I looked down at the dead pale face among the blankets and remembered a riverbank far to the south, early in the morning, and a handsome steelhead trout. I remembered a Labrador bitch called Maudie that I'd never actually seen. Well, the girl had had an accessory-to-murder charge to answer to. We'd have had a hard time getting her out of that, no matter how much we owed her, but I'd been prepared to go to work on it, or get somebody else to work on it who wielded a lot more influence than I did.
"Mr. Helm! Listen!"
I listened and heard a distant humming sound, growing steadily closer. I glanced at my watch. The hour was barely noon. Well, Holz hadn't said when in the afternoon the plane was arriving. It buzzed the pond twice, apparently needing some kind of signal to land. Getting no response, it flew away in the direction from which it had come, but not before Davis had made careful notes of its description and number.
When the sky was silent again, we climbed on our horses and headed out with Hank, released from bondage, romping happily around us. Soon we were passing the dead buckskin at the foot of the rock slide. The body of Hans Holz, the Woodman, was of course not visible from below, but I could feel its presence, sad and lonely. For some distance after leaving the lake we saw, from time to time, the small tracks of a woman's shoes in the trail ahead of us.
I took a few precautions, but I didn't really think Libby would try to tackle us. She'd fired six times back there in camp, and her weapon held only seven cartridges fully loaded. Like the pro she was, she'd saved one shot for emergency use, but it wasn't enough to deal with two well-armed men.
Anyway, we were not attacked, and presently there were no more footprints in the trail. Hearing us coming, she must have hidden to let us go by. Hank did act rather oddly at one point, but I whistled him to heel and kept him there for the best part of a mile. We reached the highway shortly after five o'clock and found a welcoming committee waiting. Apparently young Smith-Ronnie Ryerson, to give him his right name-had got on the radio and called out the reserves after Pat and Davis had headed off into the bush to rescue me. Our arrival interrupted a great debate as to whether or not a second rescue mission should be dispatched.
They weren't my people and it wasn't my job they were talking about anyway. That was all taken care of. I wasn't proud of it-I'd needed a lot of luck and a lot of help- but it had got done, which was what counted. I gave Davis' people their little envelope full of ducky little tinfoil wafers, accepted their thanks and congratulations modestly, and checked my watch constantly as the talkfest dragged on. At last I cut young Davis out of the herd and choused him to one side.